Hi. Here with another story. I skipped updating last week for the purpose of fine-tuning this, so I hope you guys appreciate this. No, this is not a one-shot. Yes, this is entirely canon. Let me know what you all think because I was once again experimenting with a new style. That said, I hope you guys enjoy and stay awesome.

Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.

-ROC6

Possible trigger warning: Mentions of insanity.

Annabeth's heart was crying tears of Lethe. It wanted so badly to forget, for her to forget, that it physically ached. And as the world spun around her, faster, faster, faster, in nauseating, soul-crushing circles, reality was crumbling at her fingertips. She was grasping and pulling and yanking, but everything was falling to pieces before her.

And it was unexplainable, irrational, frustrating to no end. Every time she blinked, she was in a classroom, in a bed, home, then she'd open her eyes again and it was gone. Everything was gone. Sometimes she was blind, other times her eyes felt sewn open so she could behold all of the horrors that lay spread before her as her mind slowly unraveled. The air was always acid, whether her eyes were open or closed, and it was poisoning her from the inside out, because every time she blinked, she was back in New York.

Or was it the other way around? Every time she blinked she was back there. In the pit, in Tartarus, and her mind wouldn't believe that she'd escaped. She'd be doing something simple. Washing her hands, brushing her teeth. And then the shaking would start. It would start in her mind, where no one would see, then it would spread to her heart, then her eyes, and her hands, until her entire body was shaking, trembling, as she crumbled to dust in the wind. She could clearly see it. The blood, the pain, the fear. She could reach out and touch them, the emotions that entangled her mind and ensnared her heart. She'd forgotten how to feel anything else.

And as she marched, through life, through Tartarus, whichever one was real, (they were both real,) she felt herself slipping away. As she grasped at reality and her memories and the smell of strawberries in the mornings and burning marshmallows at night, she felt the very fabric of her life unraveling, one strand at a time. It was happening slowly, at first, but it was slowly getting faster, and someday it would happen all at once.

She was flailing, losing, grasping at the remnants of herself, the echoes in her soul screaming that No! She wouldn't lose. She couldn't lose.

She was losing.

There was a simple truth, a simple beauty. She was losing. She was grasping tooth and claw, but she was so tired she just wanted to collapse and fold in on herself and let it do what it would because she had been fighting so, so long and she couldn't fight anymore, even though not fighting meant losing herself because she was exhausted and everything was running together. Day into night, night into day, and she couldn't fathom how she'd ever escape the unending cycle. Like a dream it floated at the edge of her memory-reality, that was-and she was doing everything she could to find it, casting out blindly in the everlasting night to try to land her anchor where she could grab on and pull herself out into the light. But she was suffocating, she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't feel anything but fear and pain and the love burning dimly inside her heart.

And all the while he was next to Annabeth, casting out just as blindly, just like her, thrusting out a piece of his soul with every push and falling just as hard as she was. His eyes glowed a haunting green, sickly and acidic and brave and strong and she could see it leeching away at him just as it was leeching away at her, but she couldn't lose him, that was the only thing she was certain of. Her world had shrunken long ago. It wasn't dreams, wasn't futures. Wasn't the past, or her memories, or her feelings. It was just him. Percy. She was holding on for him.

Her hands were burning and her arms were aching and she didn't know how much longer she could hold on, but her heart beat weakly every time she saw him and for once she felt-what was it? Alive. And dimly, somewhere in the back of her mind, she could recall blue cookies and smiles and nicknames on the beach. Good times and memories and links to what they had been. Who they had been.

And it was hard, so very difficult, as she collected the broken pieces of her life and attempted to force them together into something she could even begin to recognize because everything was falling to pieces and she had broken long ago. She had been crushed into oblivion until she couldn't distinguish herself from the ghosts that gazed back at her every time she looked in the mirror. They haunted her, followed her, and sometimes she would look at them and say hello, and they'd vanish. Then, she was alone again, just her and Percy against the world.

Just like it had always been. Sometimes they had help, she could still recall. A glow of silver and a warm smile and a hand to hold when she was scared. Someone that knew how she felt and had beat it in a way she knew she never could. Other times it was another, an outcast like herself that had to slay his demons every day, struggling and drowning as he tried to keep himself afloat. But at the end of the day, they were always gone, and it was just her and Percy again, dreaming of a life they both knew they'd never have.

And it always left her cold, chilled to the bone, and maybe that was why she was shaking so much. It was like a permafrost had settled upon her, clouding her mind and freezing her body and settling upon her heart so quickly it snapped because she was frozen in a nightmare she did not want and could not leave, the horrors of the world laid upon her weary mind as she struggled to find any shred of warmth and everything was slowly slipping from her grasp. It was all frozen behind a wall of ice, where she could see the hazy shapes but couldn't break through as her heart felt pain pain pain pain pain-

She wished for a little girl with bright eyes and broken gaze that had just watched her best friend die, wished to be the girl that realized her brother had turned against her and there was nothing she could do, wished to be lost in another time before she'd seen the true terrors the world had to offer, because the world was so much colder without the kisses of innocence.

And her heart was crying tears of Lethe, as she struggled through the freezing night with nothing to guide her but the warm hand clasped in her own, altogether more life in their clasped hands than the rest of her body. She could not remember a time before the cold and dark, another echo of herself extinguished with every drop, until she ceased to exist. She remembered a vague notion to bid the stars hello, but she could not so much as find the moon. There was nothing but blackness, for her skies had clouded over and her stars lay broken on the ground.

-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-

Annabeth smiled. And it might seem small, inconsequential, but it happened, and it felt good. She still wasn't used to it. But she was certain, now, that she was free, that they were free, for how could she hallucinate such mundane monotony? There was still the part of her, the one she fought when the sun was low and the moon was gone and the voices in her heard switched from whispers to shrieks, that said What if it's all just a dream? And they cackled and chanted You'll never escape. You'll never escape. (You'll never escape!) But she had beat them, for how else would she be able to smile now? And this feeling, of her mouth pulled wide in some sort of contorted grimace and her eyes narrowed, blocked by the pull of her cheeks and this feeling deep inside her edging away from her chest, almost as though she had a heart...

It felt good. Not just good, but it made her feel the soft thump thump thump thrumming through her veins again, and even if she couldn't think without the sensation of falling and a fearful cry, she thought that just maybe her heart was coming back. And as Percy gazed at her and whispered he loved her, she found her lips moving slowly, softly, testing the words and absorbing the feeling they brought forth in her as she said them, then slowly her lips sped up and pressed against his all of the while still repeating the key phrase as her heart performed an intricate, well-known dance with him I love you I love you I love you I love you I love you-

Nothing else mattered to her, not the whispers nor the ghosts nor the echoes she felt of who they used to be, the ripples of people they'd long forgotten how to be hidden in the eyes of their friends. It was just them, then and there, as she knew it always would be, for he had leapt from sanity to be with her, and she'd do (done?) the same for him. There were no gods, no quests, no wars, no neglect, no errands (, no servitude). It was peace. Her arms still trembled when she saw blood, her eyes still cast over the world with a nebulous gaze as her mind lay trapped in peril, but she had Percy. It didn't matter to her that her soul had crawled away to the River Cocytus or that her heart swam in the Lethe, for Annabeth still had Percy (and he still had her). And she had to be healing, she was sure that's what this feeling was, for she had smiled and she could feel herself joining back together?

(The whispers in her ear screeched and cackled as they softly sang, Are you sure?)

-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-

The sound had bubbled up from somewhere deep inside of her, a well she had thought to have dried up long ago. Yet, here it was, a bubbling sort of sound, full of a feeling she hadn't felt in a while.

Percy smiled at her, grinning lopsidedly at her startled expression, "You alright there, Wise Girl? Don't think too hard."

Annabeth cuffed the back of his head, "Seaweed Brain. "

But there was the sound again, happy and flowing and innocent. Laughter.

And somewhere inside her, beyond the exhaustion and sorrow and the pain she still felt every time her eyes shut for even a millisecond despite having escaped months ago (though the voices still told her otherwise), there was laughter, and happiness, and a sense of peace. And it was such a new feeling, one she wasn't sure she had ever felt before. Yet, here it was, scratching and clawing from the depths of a soul that she thought she'd lost a long time ago, swimming up from somewhere deep inside where she had thought it had drowned.

She and Percy were healing, at least somewhat (despite, a bitter voice added, the complete lack of help from the gods (. But why would they start helping now? They never cared, anyway)). For when she looked at Percy she no longer saw the emaciated figure and the pale skin and the scars, she just saw her Seaweed Brain. She didn't see the shadows in his eyes or the coldness in his gaze or the harshness in his voice. She just saw the love in his heart and the loyalty that bound him to her deep from his very core (or what was left of it).

When Annabeth looked in the mirror, she no longer hid from the ghosts that surrounded her; she knew she'd long since faded into one. She could hear the sighs of their forgotten dreams, gone like mist in a hurricane, and she threw hers right in. But she was healing, of that she was certain, for she looked more like a spirit than a corpse. Her skin was lacking the unearthly pallor it had developed, and her frame was not quite so painfully thin. Her wounds had long since healed, though she still felt phantom pains in her ankle, and the scars were starting to fade (or so she told herself). And though she would never be who she had been, she was alive, and she had Percy, and that was all that mattered.

(And us! chorused the voices in her mind (but it did not bother her, for she'd long since befriended them).)

She and Percy were not the same, and never would be, for the horrors of Tartarus would never leave them. They still saw the ghostly flame and smelled the acrid smoke and heard the lonely screams of the tortured, and she and Percy would never quite be at peace, but what was peace if not dull?

There was no tomorrow, just as there was no yesterday, for nothing mattered but today. Percy was with Annabeth, and she was with him, forever until the end of their time (for there wasn't a doubt in either of their minds that they would leave together). And there was no talk of families or futures, simply the struggle of making it through today, and another today, and another, surviving here and now, today, for all of their eternity (for they weren't stupid enough to think that they'd be freed with death (they had already died, in a way)).

The others didn't understand (except Nico. Nico understood). They would say remember the time…? Or hey, what are you planning on doing…? They thought that they were still the same heroes that been slaves to the immortals. The pawns in a game of chess that could turn into queens with the right push, but were useless and dispensable nonetheless. But, like angels cast from heaven, they had fallen. Their dreams had rotted and their wings tore as they shed their feathers of hope until it was easier to chop their wings off altogether, for they were no longer the creatures of heaven, but rather the demons they'd been made.

Annabeth was not blind (despite how blind the voices made her out to be). She'd heard the mocking note that had entered Percy's sarcasm (except when he spoke to her). She'd seen the harsh glint in his eyes, and the deliberateness of his movements when he killed monsters. She'd noticed the offsetting note in his laugh, and how he gripped too tightly and would often press too hard when sparring. But he wasn't alone. She'd noticed how she watched the world with a cold detachment (like him), a clinical distance, as though she wasn't watching other life forms but rather a fascinating television show. She'd noticed how her words had been sharper, her gaze harsher, her plans more violent, uncaring of injury. She'd noticed how her architecture had grown to be all hard edges and sharp turns. But she was strong. And Percy was strong. And they had been disillusioned to the cruelty of the world.

And so they looked at the black skies in their perpetual night, and the stars that lay broken on the ground, and they gathered the dust that had been left behind. Glittering and glowing softly, they gathered up the forgotten pieces, so small no one had bothered to destroy them until they had a tiny star glowing in their palms. It was only bright enough to light up each other, but it was the only light in the unending dark, and it was bright enough for them to laugh.

Percy bumped her shoulder, and she became aware of the cool air nipping her cheeks, "What are you thinking about, Wise Girl?"

She laughed.